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Purpose To advance the learning of professional practices in teacher education and medical education, this conceptual paper aims to introduce the idea of representational scaffolding for digital simulations in higher education. Design/methodology/approach This study outlines the ideas of core practices in two important fields of higher education, namely, teacher and medical education. To facilitate future professionals’ learning of relevant practices, using digital simulations for the approximation of practice offers multiple options for selecting and adjusting representations of practice situations. Adjusting the demands of the learning task in simulations by selecting and modifying representations of practice to match relevant learner characteristics can be characterized as representational scaffolding. Building on research on problem-solving and scientific reasoning, this article identifies leverage points for employing representational scaffolding. Findings The four suggested sets of representational scaffolds that target relevant features of practice situations in simulations are: informational complexity, typicality, required agency and situation dynamics. Representational scaffolds might be implemented in a strategy for approximating practice that involves the media design, sequencing and adaptation of representational scaffolding. Originality/value The outlined conceptualization of representational scaffolding can systematize the design and adaptation of digital simulations in higher education and might contribute to the advancement of future professionals’ learning to further engage in professional practices. This conceptual paper offers a necessary foundation and terminology for approaching related future research.

To assess individual students’ abilities and misconceptions in mathematics, teachers need diagnostic competencies. Although research has addressed the quality of teachers’ diagnostic competencies in recent years, it is not very clear how to foster these competencies effectively in the course of prospective teachers’ university education. Research suggests that simulations with instructional support are promising tools for fostering complex competencies. We have developed a simulation that aims at measuring and fostering prospective primary school teachers’ competencies to assess students’ mathematical abilities and misconceptions based on their written task solutions. In this study, we analysed data from prospective primary school mathematics teachers who used one of three different versions of the simulation. Two versions contained a specific type of scaffolding, while the third version did not contain scaffolding. Specifically, the two scaffolding types were content-related scaffolding that emphasized the use of specific pedagogical content knowledge, and strategic scaffolding that emphasized diagnostic activities. The results suggest that integrating scaffolding into the simulation did not substantially influence participants’ overall perception of the simulation regarding presence, authenticity, or perceived cognitive load. Compared to participants in a control group without intervention, participants who used the simulation with scaffolding had higher diagnostic accuracy regarding overall assessment of students’ competence level. However, only content-related scaffolding but not strategic scaffolding or no scaffolding tended to improve participants’ competence in identifying students’ specific misconceptions. The results provide a first empirical basis for further development of the simulation.

To advance the learning of professional practices in teacher education and medical education, this paper introduces the idea of representational scaffolding for digital simulations in higher education. We outline the ideas of core practices in two important fields of higher education, namely teacher and medical education. To facilitate future professionals’ learning of professional practices, we suggest using digital simulations for the approximation of practice, as they offer multiple options for selecting and adjusting representations of practice situations. We introduce the idea of representational scaffolding to adjust the demands of the learning task in simulations by selecting and modifying representations of practice to match relevant learner characteristics. Building on research on problem-solving and scientific reasoning, we identify leverage points for employing representational scaffolding. We suggest four sets of representational scaffolds that target relevant features of practice situations in simulations: informational complexity, typicality, required agency, and dynamics. Representational scaffolds might be implemented in a strategy for approximating practice that involves the media design, sequencing, and adaptation of representational scaffolding. The outlined conceptualization of representational scaffolding can systematize the design and adaptation of digital simulations in higher education and might advance future professionals’ learning for engaging in professional practices. This paper offers a necessary foundation and terminology for approaching related future research.